


Loki's One Of The Team

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: ASL, Combat, Engineering, Fighting, Hand-To-Hand Combat, Kissing, M/M, Manipulation, Robots, Smart Clint Barton, Smart Pietro Maximoff, Tony Being Tony, Tony Has Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-02 17:54:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10949718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: A series of fics set within the same universe, where Loki joins - in a limited capacity - the ranks of the Avengers.





	1. Loki's Dance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony asks Loki to give him a hand testing some new fighting dummies, and he’s surprised - and kind of into - Loki’s expertise. Pre-L/T.

“Allow me a moment’s meditation, Stark,” Loki says. Tony watches him from the doorway, quietly fascinated. Loki is seated on the ground, cross-legged and with his head bent forwards slightly: before him, rotating slowly in a clockwise direction, is a half-completed… Puzzle? It’s an incomplete sphere made of what looks like stained glass, and judging by the position of Loki’s hands, Loki is keeping it moving with some of his magic – his seiðr, as he insists Tony call it.

With his right, Loki affects colourful pieces to levitate from their pile, and gracefully slots them into place, where they immediately seem to mould into the puzzle as a whole, and Tony can no longer determine which piece was separate.

It’s hypnotising, watching Loki practise his magic like this, and Tony doesn’t voice any impatience or frustration with watching him work. It’s interesting in the way that watching Vision or the Maximoffs or Thor train is interesting – it’s just so different to anything Thor could or would do himself, even when they share some talents.

The last piece slots into place, and there’s a harmonious sound that beams out of the perfect globe, along with a burst of colour-stained light that drags over the white walls of the empty gym. When the globe drops from the air, Loki catches it in his hands, and turns to Tony expectantly.

“Have you need of me?” Loki asks. He’s so— Tony doesn’t know how to describe it, and certainly couldn’t voice the complaint to any of the other Avengers, but now that Loki is “one of them”, he’s so _polite_ all the time. He’s tried to bring it up, subtly, but none of the others notice – not even Natasha or Wanda, who are usually pretty good at reading other people. Basically, Loki is slightly _too_ polite.

It’s not him being rude, Tony knows that, or Thor would pick up on it – it’s Loki being reserved in a way that’s just slightly impossible for Tony to put his finger on. It’s like he’s using an ambassador’s voice for his everyday interactions, and Tony knows he doesn’t feel like he’s accepted, or whatever, yet.

Tony doesn’t like that.

“Yeah, I have need of you, hotshot. Come on.” The globe slips from Loki’s hand into a tear in the ether, and he follows Tony up the stairs and into the studio they use for combat training. Tony’s new robot, Fisty, stands in the middle of the room. Loki immediately steps towards him, stepping about him with his hands loosely held in his pockets, examining him.

Tony doesn’t know what to think about Loki’s clothes. He wears skinny, black suit trousers and a tight-fitting green shirt, but he’s almost always barefoot, and his feet are ridiculously pale: when they go out into the streets, Loki wears his Asgardian armour, but he tries to assimilate in the bounds of Stark Tower, and frankly, the way he chooses to do so is _bizarre_. It’s like if Chanel were dropping the hottest new pyjamas.

“This automaton is rather fleshy, Stark,” Loki says. He is drawing his fingers, with apparent interest, down Fisty’s back and feeling the texture of his orange-yellow, slightly transparent skin. The skin is as realistic as Tony could get it without it being weird, and Fisty is pretty humanoid looking – he’s not very defined, but he has two arms and two legs and a head, and that’s all a guy really needs to succeed. “What purpose does it serve?”

“He’s kinda like a fighting mannequin, for training up the newbies,” Tony says, grabbing his tablet from the side and dropping himself to sit on his desk. “Everyone else is out, so would you help me out with testing him out? I know you like to fight with your, uh, your seiðr, but I’d need you to keep to fists and melee stuff for this.”

“Very well,” Loki says, immediately. Tony is kind of surprised. He’d thought Loki would be kinda reluctant, but Loki doesn’t seem to mind the idea at all, and he pushes his hair back from his face, tying it with a green ribbon he pulls from nowhere. Standing about five or six feet from the mannequin, he adopts a loose pose, his hands at his sides and his feet apart. “I am ready.”

Tony’s lip twitches. He’s probably going to have to test the thing further with one of the others later on, but he’ll be able to make any smaller tweaks Fisty needs in the meantime, and he turns Fisty up to level one difficulty.

Immediately, Fisty’s eyes glow blue, and he advances on Loki. Loki stands still, letting Fisty come closer – and then Fisty swings a chop Loki’s way, and Loki blocks it like a pro. Tony watches, interested, as Loki plays through the dance like he’s done it a thousand times – he mirrors the robot’s steps with ease, blocking each and every hit and kick, deflecting them, without trying to hit back.

“This mannequin is for the training of children?” Loki inquires breezily, and Tony turns the difficulty up a few notches, expecting to see Loki struggle more, but he doesn’t. Loki moves at double, at triple speed, blocking every hit as Fisty moves faster, moves more fluidly and with less easily predictable moves.

“Nah, not exactly,” Tony says, and, out of pure curiosity, he turns the difficulty up to its highest setting – two copies of Fisty step from the sides of the room, and Loki fights the three at once.

It’s like nothing Tony’s ever seen.

He’s seen Thor be defensive, but it’s nothing like this: Loki genuinely _does_ move like he’s listening to some silent music, dodging hits and ducking under Fisty 1’s arm as he slips between Fisty 3’s legs, catching Fisty 2’s chop and ducking from Fisty 1’s punch – Jesus, it’s _impressive_. And he isn’t even trying to do them any damage!

Thor moves with a grace that Tony knows is from being raised as a prince, but when he fights, he uses his bulk and his strength – his dodges are sudden and sharp, and are usually followed by an immediate strike back. Loki moves like the stiffness of his bones is _optional_ , like he’s half-liquid and half-man.

“You can fight back you know, buddy,” Tony says, unsure if Loki realizes, and he hears a quiet _“Oh_.”

And then Loki just _goes_ for it.

He swings Fisty 3 through the air with ease, catching Fisty 2’s chopping arm and swinging him over his back, grabbing Fisty 1 by the throat and lifting him from the ground, just as Loki once did to Tony. When Fisty 1 kicks out, Loki grabs the foot and twists: Fisty’s hip lights up in red, displaying the theoretical damage done, and Loki drops him to the ground.

Tony guesses Loki is being careful not to damage the robots too much, and he’s grateful, but he kind of wants to see what Loki would be like untethered and without his seiðr – he slams through the three of them like he could be dealing with ten times as many dudes, and when Tony finally turns down the program, nearly an hour later, Loki hasn’t even broken a sweat.

“These mannequins are interesting,” Loki says mildly, in that slightly stiff, not-yet-normal voice. It’s stupid that it offends Tony so much, but Hell – Loki talked more naturally to him when they were on opposite sides. “The red displays damage done?” All three of the robots look like they’re bleeding from the inside, but the colour is beginning to fade now that they’d been shut down.

“Yeah,” Tony says. “I was thinking if I set it up like a competition – you get a limited time, and more points if you go for sensitive areas like the nose, the groin, the ribs… Teach the kids to go for the weak spots. Plus, the guys are pretty competitive – especially Clint and Nat, you know?”

“I know,” Loki says. Putting his right arm straight above his head and his left straight out beside him, he does a stretch that causes his shirt to ride up on his body and display the marble whiteness of his hip, the divot that leads down to the crease of his thigh, and the barest hint of his abs. “Would I be correct in deducing, Stark, that you believed I would be some helpless babe in arms without my seiðr?”

“I didn’t say that,” Tony says. “And I turned the difficulty up when I realized. I didn’t realize you were so good at combat, man, what do you want from me?”

“Many men have made much the same error in my time,” Loki says, with a hint of smugness. His lips quirk slightly at the edges, showing the ghost of a smirk that Tony hasn’t seen in some time. “Even my own brother, at times. Worry not. I shall forgive the foolishness, this time.”

Tony gives a little half-laugh, going to the controls and pulling the robots up as Loki walks away, but then he stops and frowns.

“Wait, this time? What does that mean, that you’re gonna do something to me next time I get something wrong?”

“Perhaps,” Loki says. There’s a sing-song playfulness in his tone, and he shoots Tony a bright, gleaming smile that makes something in Tony’s belly twitch and turn over within him. “Though your punishment has yet to be determined.”

“Right,” Tony says, and he keeps on grinning. “Don’t suppose I can get a clue?”

“Indeed not,” Loki confirms, and he sweeps from the room. Tony watches after him for a long moment, considering calling him back, just to get Loki to linger in the room, just to get a little more for now—

But no. Tony isn’t that kind of guy.

At least, not with guys like Loki, he isn’t.


	2. The Mistakes I've Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony follows after Loki after he tells a story, and realizes he's made a second mistake.

“And the river was so deep, and so vast, that no man dared to cross it. How, they demanded, could a child be drawn within its greying depths and yet live? How could you, a mere woman, hope to do the same?” Loki perches on a piece of crumbling wall, his elbows upon his knees and his hands spread as he tells his story, his pale features illuminated by the firelight. “Very well, the mother said, and she cast herself from the bank and into the waters.”

Tony glances from Loki to those that are watching – they’re mostly young SHIELD agents, but Peter Parker is listening raptly, and although he’s pretending not to pay attention, Tony can see that Pietro Maximoff’s ears are pricked, and he’s listening carefully himself.

“For three days and three nights, no sound or action was heard from that river’s untamed waters, but for its usual flow and splash. Once or twice, a child would spy the shine of something golden in the water, like that of the mother’s flaxen hair, but each time it was brushed away. Nothing but a golden fish, they would say, as we so often see in these waters, and we never catch.” Loki looks as enchanted by the story he’s weaving as those that are listening to it, his eyes defocused as he imagines the scene before him, and with his seiðr he paints a half-transparent river that flows through the camping ground, about three feet above everyone’s head. “But on the fourth day, as dawn broke, so too did the surface of the water: clasping the babe in her arms and holding fast to the tail of a golden fish, the mother came to the bank.”

Tony sees the golden body of the fish in the water, bright and shining under the light of the campfire, and he sees her too: she’s vague in shape, and all he can really make out is her bark-brown skin and her flowing blonde hair, as well as the child she holds against her chest. It’s like seeing a figure in a half-remembered dream, even though the fish and the river are as crisp and clear as crystal.

He’s keeping her vague on purpose, Tony realizes. The point is that you see her as you imagine her, he supposes.

Maybe Loki never found out what she looked like.

“Drawing herself from the water, she laid her baby upon the bank. The infant was soaked to the skin and swaddled in nought but river weed and shining kelp, but it mattered not: the child yet laughed, sweetly as any child of spring or summer, and he shone with a golden light. Fascinated and delighted, those of the village came in closer, but the mother refused them the right to look upon her child. Taking him up from the ground once more, she swaddled him anew in the wheats and grasses of the river’s bank, and barefoot she walked from that village to the next.”

Loki smiles, and before them the river parts into pieces, melding into the black sky and the stars above their heads, leaving only a trail of gold that lingers in the air.

“And so she walked from place to place, moving o’er ground and through water and across the skies themselves, until she found an orchard. This orchard was ancient and sprawling, and from the thick, wide trees of its trees grew fruits that were plump and luscious, and as gold as the hair that now grew thick upon her child’s head. Her journey at an end, the mother took from the leaves of the widest trees, where their stems were gold and silver, and she swaddled her child for the final time, leaving him upon the sacks that gathered the golden fruit. I found him as the sky turned to the sweetest evening pink, and I took him in my arms to Iðunn, that she might raise him and feed him from her breast.”

“Why didn’t you take him?” Tony asks. Loki leans back upon his heels, surprised at the interruption, and he looks at Tony with his blue eyes wide and his head tilted to the left, perplexed.

“It matters not,” Loki says, slightly hurriedly, awkwardly, and then returns to his melodious, story-telling voice. “And the child grew strong, his hair long and golden as the fruits he tends. His name is Idar, and where he walks and swims and climbs, golden grasses spring up behind him. Good night, my friends.”

Loki slips from the wall and into the woods behind them, but Tony follows into the darkness. The rule out here in Yellowstone, after all, is to not let anyone walk off alone, even just to piss, and Tony isn’t about to make an exception just because Loki’s been telling everyone bedtime stories. It’s not a damn camping trip, after all.

Tony walks off onto the path, listening to the distant sounds of birds and rats and shifting trees, his hands in his pockets. He isn’t all that comfortable out here in the wilderness – sure, it’s important and all, and he believes it should be here, but he shouldn’t be out in it. “Lokes?” This isn’t a good idea, Tony’s aware, but most of what Tony’s ever done has been based off bad ideas, and Loki, now he’s on the side of the good guys, is… Well, he’s hot, but he’s _interesting_. Tony is _interested_.

“Don’t call me that, Stark,” Loki says, his voice echoing from somewhere to the left of the path. Tony steps off the beaten-down track, making his way through the longer grass, which is wet with dew, and he feels mulch squelch under his boots. Loki stands in a little clearing, examining a patch of fungus on a silvery-barked tree, drawing his fingers over its surface. “Do you know anything of the Edda, Stark?”

“Uh, yeah, the Edda is your thing, right? The Norse mythology?”

“Have you read it?”

“Nah,” Tony says, shrugging his shoulders and hoping this isn’t going to be somehow offensive to the guy. Loki turns to examine him. His face is even paler than usual in the dappled moonlight that comes in through the canopy of trees above them, and Loki steps toward him, meeting Tony’s gaze.

“Bad things happen to my children, Stark,” Loki says mildly. “Had I taken Idar to my own, he would now be dead, I’m sure – dead, or worse.”

“You’ve got kids?” Tony asks, and Loki chuckles.

“Of course,” Loki says. “Thor has Móði and Magni. I have Jormungandr, Fenrir, Hel and Sleipnir, by Svaðilfari.” Tony stares at Loki, unsure what to say, hit hard by what Loki’s just said to him, and he asks, awkwardly,

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know, they’re- all your kids are…?”

“Those are my children that yet live, Stark,” Loki says. “I buried Narfi and Valí some centuries ago – as well as my relations with the Lady Sigyn.” Loki speaks frankly, still using that horrible, too-polite voice, although it’s been loosening when they’re in a group and in the field together. “Have I struck out your tongue, Stark? You’ve not met a parent before?”

“I just feel awkward, wouldn’t you? Some guy in your team is just casually like, yeah, I’ve got four kids, but they never come up or anything, so I didn’t mention them, but hey! If you’d read this old-ass book, you’d know all about ‘em.”

“A mistake has been made,” Loki murmurs, a little of his diplomacy fading away and being replaced with the sneaking, slithering tone that Tony recognizes as something closer to Loki’s default. “Had I not promised you a punishment?” Tony gives a little chuckle, leaning a little away from the other man and showing his teeth.

“What you got in mind, Loki? Is your majesty going to _spank_ me?”

“I’m but a prince, Stark,” Loki answers. “The correct title is _your highness._ That would strike me as mistake number two.” It occurs to Tony that Loki is doing this to distract from the issue at hand – he thinks he’s said too much, maybe, or he just doesn’t want Tony to ask any sensitive questions – but he doesn’t really care. Doesn’t Tony do the same thing, at times? Loki smiles at him, and then he leans, cupping the back of Tony’s head and drawing him into a kiss.

It’s sudden, and Loki’s lips are slightly cold, leaving a tingling, numb sensation on Tony’s tongue and the side of his own mouth as Loki draws him slightly deeper; Loki then draws back. Tony’s mouth is slightly open, and he goes to say something, but before he can, Loki kisses Tony again, drawing his fingers over Tony’s jaw, stroking over the stubble that grows there as he nips at Tony’s lip.

Loki leans away once more, smirking as if he’s won a game of chess or something, and Tony says, “What kind of punishment is that supposed to be?” He feels like pumping the air with his fist or letting out a sound of victory or something like that, but he knows that Loki will definitely make fun of him if he tries to do that.

“The punishment, Stark,” Loki says, and the diplomacy is gone now, his tone slick and polished and painted in silver, “is that I shan’t be doing it again this evening.” Loki takes a graceful step away from Tony, letting his fingers dance over Tony’s neck as he does so, and Tony lets out a short, bitten-off sound of frustration as Loki goes. “Come. Let us back to the encampment.”

“You _cannot_ be serious,” Tony snaps, but Loki is already laughing into the wind and walking back to the path with a spring in his step.


	3. Playing For A Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki watches Maximoff and Barton together in the lab, but Tony interrupts him.

From his perch high up in the atrium’s hall, leaning back against one of the pillars of the wide room, Loki watches. He’s perhaps twenty feet above the heads of the other Avengers, and he is hidden from the glass walkway that runs behind him: this is a large laboratory, and Loki would guess Stark had designed its shape for the sake of aesthetics more than anything else. He has a weakness for such things.

Below him, he watches Clint Barton.

Barton doesn’t speak with Loki, despite his new status as a “hero”, whatever that truly means – Loki does as he pleases, and he dislikes being ascribed a moral compass – but Loki does not mind.

He likes to watch Barton, and Barton doesn’t know to watch back.

In the back of his mind, Loki recalls what it was like to feel Barton’s mental processes serving his own: he thinks methodically, in an orderly, almost inhuman manner, and at a speed Loki doubts many of the Avengers could keep up with. Barton is what the humans would call a genius and yet, so it seems to Loki, none of the Avengers are aware.

The only ones who seem to comprehend the extent of Barton’s mental capacity are Romanov and Maximoff, and the others brush him off as if he is somehow inept or deficient – and from what Loki can glean, this is precisely what Barton desires.

It is truly quite curious.

Maximoff appears beside Barton and peers over his shoulder, examining the computer terminal Barton is making use of. Barton does not seem to notice, initially, his gaze kept upon the three monitors before him: the one in the centre he uses to draw upon, using a stylus shaped to resemble an arrow, and Loki can see he is designing some new manner of fletched weaponry.

“What’cha doing?” Maximoff asks, his mouth directly beside Barton’s ear, and when Barton flinches back, Loki can see in his manner that it was from the hot breath upon his skin, and not from hearing the other man speak.

Loki sees Barton’s hearing aids on the desk beside him, settled neatly in a clean ashtray.

Barton swings in his chair to look at Maximoff, who is smirking, his angular features only adding to the expression. He shares, Loki thinks absently, his nose and his bone structure with his father, and his shock of silvery-white hair only adds to the resemblance. When Loki had pointed this out, not unkindly, upon meeting the young man, Maximoff had been furious, and has spoken nary a word to Loki since.

 _What_? Barton demands, abruptly and aggressively bringing his hands out from his chest into the questioning gesture. Maximoff’s grin gets wider.

 _What are you doing?_ Maximoff signs as if he has made use of the language for one thousand years, but Maximoff, Loki has determined, understands every language spoken in front of him, and feigns ignorance of most. Barton lets out a _tch_ , turning away from Maximoff and looking back to his monitor, but Maximoff is undeterred. Sliding the keyboard out from under Barton’s hands, he types speedily upon it, making adjustments to and adding to the calculations Barton has on his leftside monitor.

Barton glances at him, spares himself a moment of perplexity, and then allows it.

Loki puts his chin upon his hand, and allows himself a moment to be amused.

“What’cha doing?” comes a voice from behind him, and Loki turns. Stark leans upon the bannister of the glass walkway, and when Loki glances back down, Maximoff and Barton are staring up at them both: sound carries well in the laboratory’s chamber, and Maximoff undoubtedly tapped Barton once he realized.

“Nothing,” Loki says, innocently, and steps from the pillar onto the air, joining Stark on the walkway with an easy shift of his hips over the walkway’s edge.

“Spying?” Stark asks, seeming amused at the prospect.

“Spying would imply some _sinister_ purpose,” Loki points out, spreading his hands easily. He is aware of Maximoff’s gaze following them from the room, but he doesn’t deign to turn and meet the man’s eye. “I merely find them _sweet_. Doesn’t Rogers assign some time of his days to watching videos of dogs?”

“That comparison is, uh, _uncomfortable_ ,” Tony says, half-sternly, “but I think you know that.” He opens the door, letting Loki pass through first, and when the door swings shut beside them and they move together through Stark Tower’s corridors, Tony gives Loki a sideways glance. He is waiting, wanting, for Loki to kiss him once again, but he will not voice the desire. “Seriously, big guy, what is it about them you find so interesting?”

Loki smiles at Stark, mimicking a stance he has seen Rogers adopt and putting his hands loosely into his pockets. Immediately, he seems more casual, less _princely_ , and he can see that Stark is mildly disarmed, though of course he will not show it. Loki is still broader and taller than Stark, but the difference is less pronounced, now.

“You’re not gonna tell me, huh?” Stark asks, finally. Loki’s smile deepens.

“Maximoff and Barton are easily the most intelligent among you. This is an achievement, given that this facility houses the, ah, _best and brightest_ that Midgard has to offer. And yet they are relegated to the sidelines, settle themselves in the background, and rarely take command of their own missions.”

“You think Pietro and Clint are smarter than me?” Stark says immediately, as Loki had thought he would. “Smarter than _Bruce_? Even Peter Parker, for shit’s sake—”

“You see? Their deception has taken in even yourself,” Loki says mildly. “They are devotees of my own sphere, are they not?” Stark lets out a sharp sound of frustration, for Loki has taken his ego and twisted it.

“Look, Barton’s not stupid, sure, but— He’s not an _engineer_ , Loki. He couldn’t do the stuff I’ve done. And Pietro, jeeze, he’s just a smartass who tweaks shit people have already done.”

“Very well,” Loki says. He likes to play the role of the simple soul when he is with Stark: it frustrates the man, and it amuses Loki as much as his play with Thor of the same make-up. Of course, his relationship with Stark is not nearly so- _strained_ as that of his with his brother, as of late.

They walk in silence, and Loki can see that Stark is inwardly fuming, arguing in his head with what Loki has told him – perhaps, when he has time aside to calm and re-evaluate, he will consider what Loki has said, and he will agree. Perhaps he will not.

Loki cares not either way.

“Let me ask you a question, princess,” Stark says, suddenly, turning his head to Loki. He reminds Loki of Fandral, when Fandral was younger, and had not yet modulated his brashness some. The thought makes Loki’s lip twitch. “What the Hell is your deal?”

Loki’s brow shifts, and he tilts his head slightly to the side, examining Stark for a moment. “I beg your pardon?”

“Look, you keep doing this- this _polite_ thing with me, where you act like this big Asgardian prince, and then you kind of tone it down and act like you’re Prince Harry, but you won’t act like a _person_. Look, just- just _quit_ it, alright? ‘Cause you act like a normal guy when you’re talking to Parker or Bruce or Wanda, and they all _hate_ you. I actually like you, and you just act like I’m some subject of yours that you don’t know too well!”

“Are you quite finished, Stark?” Loki asks, raising his eyebrows. Stark slams his hand hard against a metal beam in the wall, making a sharp ringing sound. When the sound breaks off, Stark says,

“Yeah, I’m finished.”

“Good,” Loki says, and he pushes Stark against the wall, his right hand spread over Stark’s chest and neck, his left against Stark’s hip. Stark lets himself be pushed back, looking up at Loki with a wary, but not fearful, deepness to his gaze. Loki taps his thumb against the Arc Reactor, feeling its energetic pulse beneath his touch. “I do it precisely because you _do_ seem to like me, Stark,” Loki murmurs, and his left hand moves slightly lower, cupping Tony’s thigh through the loose fabric of his trousers. “I have no need to _ingratiate_ myself, to convince you I’m no danger to you.” Loki leans in, so that his mouth hovers a little over Stark’s, and adds, “You _want_ me to be a danger to you, do you not?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Stark says hoarsely, his tone pinched. “You gonna kiss me again or what?”

“Or what.” Loki whispers the words against Stark’s mouth, stroking down the length of his thigh in a lazy, easy motion. “You must learn, Stark, that I am a _prince_.” Loki releases Stark, taking a step back from him and raising his hands in a false gesture of innocence. “I expect to be wooed.”

“Wooed? _You_? What, you want me to buy you a ribbon for your hair?” Loki reaches up, artfully tousling his own hair.

“That would be nice.” Stark stares at him, narrowing his eyes, and when Loki laughs, he throws himself forwards. Stark grabs at Loki’s hair, pulls him in and kisses him as hard as he can: Loki lets him. Stark’s fingers grasp desperately at the front of Loki’s blazer, his fingers scrambling for purchase upon Loki’s body as if he is a drowning man: Loki allows it. Stark pulls back, lays his forehead against Loki’s chest as if to steady himself, and Loki looks down at the back of his head, surprised.

He touches Stark’s hair, gently, and he feels Stark’s breath against him, hears the fast pump of Stark’s blood within him – so much faster than the pulse of Loki’s own, even with Loki having a heart.

“Shall we retire for lunch?” Loki asks, and after a long pause, Tony nods his head. Loki wishes, not for the first time, that that year ago he had gained purchase on Tony’s mind – how he should have liked a gaze within the workings of this head.

But alas, it was not to be.

Loki will let himself play with Stark for a time, and he will do his best not to think too much about it.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, hope you enjoyed that! Check [this link](http://dictionarywrites.tumblr.com/post/160853818533/request-commission-information) out if you’re interested in making a request.


End file.
